Starthis Partners with Information Builders to Deliver Real Time Visibility onto the Plant Floor Combining iTapestry and WebFOCUS Reducing Manufacturing Errors, Latency, and Downtime.

Starthis, an emerging technology industrial automation middlewarecompany, and Information Builders, the leader in enterprisebusiness intelligence and real-time Web reporting, todayannounced a strategic alliance focused on providing real-timeconnectivity, integration and reporting from the plant floorthroughout the manufacturing enterprise. The companies offer anintegrated technologyset that collects data directly frommanufacturing floor controls using iTapestry, a Starthis product,distributes the data to existing enterprise resources using iWaySoftware, and creates reports using WebFOCUS, both InformationBuilders products. Using this solution, real-time reports can nowbe generated from real-time plant floor data and delivered to theappropriate people throughout the manufacturing enterpriseon-demand.

Starthis is the first industrial automation softwaredeveloper to directly connect to disparate plant floor controlsfrom Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EET) platforms throughstandards based industrial networks.

Information Builders'WebFOCUS reads Starthis data using its integration company'stechnology, iWay Software, then creates reports on the datacollected directly from plant floor programmable logiccontrollers (PLC) and sensors.

The resulting solution allowsrapid identification and resolution of manufacturinginefficiencies and/or problems.

'Accessing and understandingplant floor information in real-time is vital to the successfulmanagement of manufacturing operations, yet this data istypically not easily accessible for enterprise executivestoday,' said David Naylor, CEO of Starthis.

'Tworeasons why Starthis and Information Builders can offer this newlevel of insight are the increasing acceptance and implementationof Enterprise Java and industrial networks in manufacturing.

Datafrom machines on the plant floor is monitored through barcodescanners, photo sensors, proximity sensors, and PLCs.

UsingiTapestry, WebFOCUS, and Starthis Partners with InformationBuilders iWay, enterprise executives gain a new perspective ofthe manufacturing floor by reviewing and analyzing accurate andtimely data, on an as-needed basis.' Starthis builds abridge between the plant floor and the enterprise IT level tofacilitate the flow of information locked inside disparatecontrol systems used in the islands of automation on the plantfloor.

WebFOCUS turns the collected plant floor data intointelligent information that can be easily understood by anyonein the extended enterprise, including executives, suppliers, oreven customers.

'This is another example of 'rings ofdata' inside an enterprise that can access and analyzecritical information.

In this case, tying together InformationBuilders and Starthis technologies provides a unique snapshot ofa manufacturer's work in progress,' said Gerald Cohen,CEO of Information Builders.

'Imagine the value ofcustomizable, detailed information about cycle time, uptime, downtime, pieces an hour, error rate, etc We are providing a betterunderstanding of the production process and drastically improvingreaction time.

This unprecedented new perspective into themanufacturing process can translate into substantial annualsavings for manufacturers, not to mention possibly generating newservices that could ultimately give them a competitiveedge.'